Understand Workflows and Playbooks

Workflows keep important jobs moving from your request to a recorded result. Playbooks supply the methods your employee uses along the way.

TL;DR

A workflow saves the stages and progress of a supported job. Playbooks supply reusable instructions without owning that progress. Tell your employee what you need, or choose an outcome from the work menu.

Choose a Sales job

Open the work menu in your employee's chat to browse suggested jobs or search for an outcome. Sales actions are grouped by prospecting, replies and meetings, deals and proposals, retention, and operations. Each card states the result you can expect. The small corner symbol identifies a workflow, playbook, or skill; hover over it to see the type.

• Build a prospect list finds and qualifies contacts, then delivers the list without outreach.
• Find prospects and send outreach continues from sourcing through your reviews and approved first emails.
• Follow up and book meetings continues existing outreach through replies and meeting confirmations.
• Draft a sales email, Prepare a discovery call, and Prepare a sales proposal produce focused deliverables.

The menu contains suggested jobs, not every skill your employee has. You can still ask for other work in chat and review capabilities in the employee profile. Existing conversations show the current menu whenever you open it.

How It Works

These four layers answer different questions. Keeping them separate lets you define ambitious work without turning every instruction into an always-on rule.

Workflow

For prospecting, state the total you want, such as 50 or 100. Larger campaigns run in smaller batches. A three-contact trial is not the maximum campaign size. Premium contacts consume credits and your plan's allowance: Free includes three lifetime premium records, while paid plans have monthly limits. Available database capacity can also limit a run.

You can ask your employee to remember your preferred campaign quantity. A one-off request does not change future defaults, and a remembered quantity does not bypass spending or email approvals.

You can also say “Use public web research only.” Automatic selection can combine public discovery with database lookups when they fit your audience and budget. Web research still uses work credits; premium lookups also consume your plan's premium-contact allowance.

A workflow keeps the current stage, completed work and waiting reason. Its employee can reason about research or wording, while the workflow checks saved results before advancing. A workflow can use several playbooks, one, or none. The same playbook can serve different workflows.

The work menu is a list of useful outcomes, not a workflow editor. Choosing a whole card requests that whole outcome. Some outcomes have managed workflows; others remain flexible playbook work. You can also ask for work directly in conversation.

Sales replies and meetings

After your first outreach completes, choose Follow up and book meetings in the Sales work menu, in the same conversation. Share your real booking link and choose replies-only handling or a limited no-response follow-up cadence. Existing message approvals still apply.

Replies to tracked outreach can open setup automatically when your employee accepts external contacts. After setup, matching replies wake the saved work without another menu click. This workflow uses the employee's hosted mailbox; untracked Gmail, Outlook or booking-provider notifications are not automatically included.

A booking link is an invitation to book, not a confirmed meeting. A meeting counts only when a future calendar invitation is linked to the tracked conversation and sender. You can inspect replies in Inbox, meetings in Calendar, and saved progress in the workflow inspector.

Once a prospect agrees to a time, Sales can request your approval to send a calendar invitation, reschedule it or cancel it. Supply a real meeting link and timezone; connected-calendar availability and new conference links are not assumed. Attendance is optional and off by default. When you authorize attendance, it uses your meeting permissions and credit limits. Invitation acceptance, actual attendance, transcript and saved notes appear as separate results, so a booked slot is never presented as proof that the employee attended.

Manage your inbox

Open your private conversation with your Personal Assistant and choose Manage my inbox in Work. Choose Gmail or Outlook, tell your assistant what matters, and choose whether to keep reply drafts or review replies for sending. Connect the selected account when asked; completing sign-in resumes the same conversation.

Your assistant reviews a limited set of messages, groups useful priorities and prepares replies where needed. The report names messages that need your attention and shows each saved reply beside its source. A saved reply proposal stays in the workflow until you choose to send it; it is not a draft saved in Gmail or Outlook.

Gmail and Outlook use Ask first for outgoing actions by default. Their tool settings and Settings > Approvals show the same policy. Reading messages does not require a separate approval under that default.

One review ends with a report. It does not turn on ongoing monitoring or change your calendar. Repeated reviews pause when a connection or reply decision needs you. If an inbox read fails or a reply has no confirmed receipt, the report says so; an uncertain reply is not sent again automatically. A provider acceptance receipt confirms the provider accepted the reply, not that it reached the recipient's inbox.

Brief your day and prepare for meetings

Your Personal Assistant has separate choices in Work:

• Brief me on my day checks the selected calendar and inbox, then highlights today's meetings, required replies and decisions. Times include the calendar's timezone, and source references let you open the original items.
• Prepare for a meeting builds a private brief for a selected or upcoming meeting. It reuses the matched contact's saved research and permitted interaction history before researching missing details.
• Prepare me for upcoming meetings checks a future calendar window and offers preparation for matching meetings. Ongoing preparation requires your reviewed calendar scope, timing, end date and limits. You can still request an individual meeting brief without enabling a routine.
• Schedule a meeting checks availability and prepares the actual calendar event. Your saved Ask first or Don't ask setting still applies, including invitations and event updates.

A missing connection or failed read is reported as a gap, never as an empty calendar or a clear inbox. Personal email and meeting preparation stay in your private conversation. If another employee can help, your assistant proposes the necessary business handoff without copying your full personal email into shared work.

Daily briefing and meeting preparation save their progress. Scheduling uses the existing calendar playbook and connected tools. Choosing any of these outcomes starts the requested work once; ongoing checks require an explicit routine. Connecting an account does not authorize outgoing messages or calendar changes.

Upcoming-meeting preparation checks periodically at the cadence you agree. It keeps one preparation record per meeting occurrence and rechecks changed meeting details. A completed brief is not generated again on every check. All-day meetings and declined invitations are skipped; a missing event in an incomplete calendar read is not treated as cancelled. Pausing the routine prevents further automatic preparation.

Keep commitments and work moving

The Personal Assistant's Work menu also includes focused jobs that use its existing playbooks and skills:

A task deadline does not automatically set a reminder. Give your assistant the reminder time and timezone in your private chat. It confirms when scheduling succeeds; a reminder still being scheduled or one that failed is not presented as ready. At the agreed time, one message appears in the same private conversation with a link to the task. Ask your assistant to inspect, change or cancel it there.

Finishing or archiving the task cancels its pending reminder. Changing its deadline also cancels the old reminder, so agree a new reminder time. A private reminder does not email anyone, add a calendar event or activate repeated work.

Saved notes do not imply meeting attendance or recording. A trip plan is not a reservation, and a proposed time is not a booking. Your assistant shows the exact external action for approval when required and returns the confirmed result separately. Connected-calendar bookings link to their provider event; not every connected event is mirrored on the company's calendar board.

Run workflows from routines

Open the employee's Routines tab to see what can repeat. Workflow routines use the same names as the work menu.

• Set up required: choose Set up with AI to agree on the scope, accounts, timing and limits. These routines stay off until setup is approved.
• Configured: the routine has saved workflow setup. Each run still checks current account access and respects your approval settings.
• Follows saved jobs: the routine continues an existing job when it is due. For sales follow-up, start the workflow for the contacts you want handled; the routine does not create a new campaign.

Your employee can choose an assigned workflow when it fits your request, or use a skill for a smaller task. A connected tool alone does not start ongoing work or authorize sending, publishing or calendar changes.

Playbook

A playbook is the customer-visible package for an end-to-end deliverable the employee leads with. In Sistava today, a playbook is a skill marked as a Playbook, so it uses the same on-demand instruction system while appearing in its own Playbooks tab.

A playbook can stay self-contained. When part of its method will be useful across several deliverables, make that part a separate skill and reuse it instead of copying the instructions everywhere.

Skill

A skill is a reusable method. It tells the employee how to perform a type of work, such as researching a market, drafting an email, or checking a spreadsheet. The employee sees its name and “When to use” description, then loads the detailed instructions only when they fit the request.

Duty

A duty is different because it never waits for a matching task. It is a concise standard that stays in the employee’s mind every time they work, such as respecting your files or recording decisions. Use a duty for a rule that must always hold, not for a sequence of steps.

What You Can Do

How to Set It Up

You do not need to build a graph. Start with a clear request, such as “Find and contact three UK construction companies for my bookkeeping firm. Show me the template first.”

To shape how an employee works:

1. Open the employee’s Playbooks tab to review their end-to-end deliverables.
2. Open Skills to add or improve reusable methods behind that work.
3. Open Duties to add only the standards that must apply every time.
4. Request the outcome in chat or choose its work-menu card. Answer missing business questions and any approval you requested.

For Find prospects and send outreach, your employee saves the audience, researches prospects, records reviewed contacts, prepares a reusable template and personalizes the first outreach. The saved run checks mailbox receipts before reporting first-email acceptance. Reply handling and closing a deal are distinct outcomes, not implied by sending the first email.

Contacts and the email template appear directly in chat, without opening the activity log. By default, Outbound Campaigns shows the proposed email for approval before saving it and continuing with personalized outreach. Keep the relevant tools on Ask first when you want to review their actions. Once you trust them, Always allow uses the same workflow without those permission pauses, including scheduled work. Your explicit request to review something, a missing connection or missing business details can still require your attention.

Tips & Tricks

• Keep requests outcome-led. State the result, audience and useful constraints, rather than directing every tool call.
• Keep playbooks deliverable-led. Name the useful result, not a vague department or capability.
• Extract reusable parts into skills. If the same method belongs in several playbooks, keep one skill and reference it where it is needed.
• Keep duties short. A duty consumes attention on every interaction. Put a checklist, decision tree, or long method in a skill instead.
• Start narrow when needed. Ask for a single task or playbook when you do not need the whole outcome.

Good to Know

• Workflow graphs are read-only. Inspect stages and supporting playbooks in Workflows. Arbitrary graph editing is not available; playbooks and skills remain editable through their existing tabs.
• Existing approvals still apply. Automatic tool permission does not add a new approval at every stage. Ask-first settings and your explicit requests for review remain separate decisions.
• Pause has a defined scope. Sales follow-up also holds its own unsent messages until resumed. Other emails already scheduled in the mailbox remain independently scheduled; manage those in the mailbox schedule. An email already accepted by the provider cannot be recalled.
• Acceptance is not delivery. An accepted receipt does not prove inbox placement, a reply, a meeting or a sale.
• Playbooks and skills share the same foundation today. A playbook is a skill marked for its customer-facing, end-to-end value. The separate tab makes important deliverables easier to find.
• Nothing replaces your judgment. The employee can ask one focused question when the outcome or priority is unclear before it acts.

FAQ

Q: Is a workflow another kind of employee instruction? A: No. A workflow owns saved progress and allowed stages. Playbooks and skills provide methods, while duties remain standing standards.

Q: Can a playbook use just one skill? A: Yes. A playbook can be self-contained. Split out a supporting skill only when that method is useful beyond one deliverable.

Q: Can I use only one part of a workflow? A: Ask for that smaller task directly. A managed workflow is useful when you want the complete supported outcome and its saved progress.

Q: Why not make every instruction a duty? A: Duties are fully loaded every time, so they must stay short. Skills and playbooks load when relevant, which keeps detailed methods available without crowding every interaction.

Q: Does Manage my inbox keep checking my email after the first review? A: No. Each inbox review is a finite job. Ask for a repeated review with an interval, end date and run limit when you want a routine; your reply approval settings still apply.